Hotham: Snow Time

Big Red had her first big road challenge. Rob has done some work on the old girl to get her ready for the 4WD adventuring ahead and the steep mountain climb up to Hotham provided the perfect opportunity to see how she was running. The drive to Hotham from Deniliquin is spectacular. The foothils of the mountains are lush and green, the small towns all have a historic appeal to them and ass we started to head up the mountains everything took on a European style. It is very different to the NSW ski fields and well worth a visit for those who haven't been. You won't be disappointed.

As the avid snow goers out there will know, Australia had a fabulous start to the season this year. That said, it hadn't snowed in a few weeks when we set out for Hotham, but snow was predicted and we were excited just to be going to the snow. We stayed in a very cute little chalet in Dinner Plain, which is a small village about 15km from Hotham but still above the snow line. It is slightly more protected than Hotham and has a small ski run for little kids. There are also fabulous bars and restaurants. We went to a Japanese Restaurant called Tsubo, which was extremely good, even if a large number of the dishes used "rehydrated" and "dehydrated" fruits that were surprisingly tasty.

The first opportunity we got, we ditched the kids in daycare, strapped on the snowboards and headed for the slopes. The snow wasn't fabulous but as Rob and I had never been to Hotham before all the runs were new to us and they are all fairly steep so lots of fun was had. We only got one day on the runs but the next day was spent playing with the kids on the small run in Dinner Plain. To tell you the truth it was just as much fun as spending time on the runs. Jarvis and Sas had a go on some tiny skis and we all had a great time tobogganing and having snowball fights.

The drive home took us through Beechworth for a lovely visit and lunch and we rolled into the farm just as the sun was setting. I could get used to this.

Big Red Outside our Chalet